A couple of weeks after the end of my first semester of teaching as the instructor of record, I received "the packet" in my campus mailbox — an interoffice envelope stuffed with course evaluations from my students. Those evaluations mattered a lot to me at the time, as I was still figuring out this whole teaching thing. Was I doing a good job? Did my students like the class? And, more selfishly, did they like me?
For many decades America enjoyed a well-deserved reputation as a leader in technological innovation and creativity and most countries of the world looked toward the United States for indications of what was likely to become the next global trend. Clearly, America's pre-eminence in many areas of technology has been challenged by such countries as Japan, Germany and more recently China. However, many innovations and developments of a socio-economic nature also tend to have their origins in the U.S. and are frequently a harbinger of what is likely to occur in three, five or even ten years hence in other parts of the world.
After years of taking orders, you finally get to issue them in your first administrative role. You will have the freedom to make your own plans, set your own direction, and surround yourself with people who share your work ethic and point of view. Life is good!
Since its launch in 1983, the U.S. News and World Report’s annual college rankings have sought to compare institutions using a series of quantifiable metrics, including acceptance rates and alumni donations, that have increasingly come under scrutiny. In 2013, President Obama argued that the rankings actually incentivize colleges to “game the numbers and in some cases, [get rewarded] for raising costs,” encouraging schools to invest extra money in activities such as alumni outreach and in turn theoretically raise tuition. Yet, according to Obama, colleges motivated by these grading systems, largely continued to neglect one key measure: student outcomes. Since then, he’s pledged to change the way colleges are ranked by shifting the focus from institutional prestige to students’ actual academic experience.
Rae Report (2005) recommendation:«…develop a
First-Generation Strategy that involves early outreach to students and ongoing supports to ensure success while they are enrolled».
Abstract
Emerging from the contested site of a new university campus, this article reflects on the transformative process of reconceptualizing and rebuilding a professional and an academic stream in a 21st-century Faculty of Education. In order to maximize her own capital, an assistant professor sought tenure in an innovative new stream introduced to her campus,
professor of teaching. The novel rank reflected the commitment of the university to provide educational leadership, outstanding teaching, and curriculum innovation to higher education. However, guidelines for promotion to professor were not directive and
exhaustive but more suggestive of being situated in place-based environments. Within the context of a market driven and policy-laden post-secondary institution, this was problematic. Since evidence supporting promotion to full professor is dependent on the discipline and the faculty, a myriad of interpretations of what exactly constituted a professor of
teaching emerged. Based on the ambiguity of these policies, the discussion surrounding the experiences of otherness and marginalization which arose as this scholar-practitioner focused on her work as a teacher educator and a researcher in an emerging rank became of singular interest.
Keywords: professor of teaching, higher education, tenure, promotion, research, marginalization
Résumé
Tirant sa source du site contesté d’un nouveau campus universitaire, cet article propose une réflexion sur le processus de transformation lié à la reconceptualisation et à la refonte d’un volet professionnel et universitaire au sein d’une Faculté d’éducation du XXIe siècle. En vue de maximiser son propre capital, une professeure adjointe a cherché à obtenir sa
permanence dans un volet novateur introduit dans son campus, celui de « professor of teaching », un nouveau niveau de poste reflétant la volonté de l’université de promouvoir le leadership en éducation, l’excellence dans l’enseignement et l’innovation en matière de curriculum au postsecondaire. Toutefois, au lieu d’être directifs et exhaustifs, les critères à remplir pour accéder à ce niveau de poste étaient plutôt de nature suggestive et fondées sur le milieu. Dans le contexte d’un établissement postsecondaire axé sur le marché et ancré dans des politiques, cela posait un problème. Comme les données venant appuyer
la promotion au poste de professeur titulaire dépendent de la discipline et de la faculté, une foule d’interprétations de ce qui constitue exactement un « professor of teaching » a surgi. Étant donné l’ambiguïté de ces politiques, la discussion entourant les expériences d’altérité et de marginalisation qui est survenue lorsque cette universitaire-praticienne a concentré son attention sur son travail comme professeure de pédagogie et comme chercheuse dans un nouveau niveau de poste s’est avérée particulièrement intéressante.
Mots-clés : professor of teaching, enseignement supérieur, permanence, promotion,
recherche, marginalisation
A seasoned educator shares four ideas for supporting students who have suffered emotional trauma.
Academic work is often solitary, but succeeding in the professoriate arguably requires social acumen. So is that why gay men and women are disproportionately represented among academics? A new study investigating the phenomenon of “occupational segregation” argues that certain jobs -- including that of professor -- are particularly appealing to gay men and lesbians for these reasons.
When leaders of the world’s seven most advanced economies meet on June 8 and 9 in Charlevoix, Que., the top-line agenda item will be preparing for the jobs of the future.
What exactly does this agenda item mean for the Canadian workers, students and employers?
The proliferation of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced robotics are changing the face of work. Some jobs will be fully automated. Others will require humans to work alongside emerging technologies, leveraging the best of what machines are good at – routine tasks and analytics – against what humans are best at – critical thinking and creativity.
Ontario’s colleges share the provincial government’s belief that apprenticeship must play a greater role in addressing skills shortages and contributing to innovative, high-performance workplaces that enhance Ontario’s competitiveness.
Some are stocking naloxone kits, while others are pushing increased public awareness.
On April 14 last year, British Columbia’s chief health officer declared a public health emergency due to the high number of opioid overdose deaths in the province – and the death toll has continued to rise since then. In December, Vancouver police reported up to nine opioid overdose deaths in a single night. At a conference on the opioid crisis held in Ottawa in November, Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins said that, in his province, opioid overdose is now the third leading cause of accidental deaths, accounting for about 700 deaths a year.
Also attending the Ottawa conference was Aaron Orkin, an emergency physician with Sinai Health System in Toronto and a researcher at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Dr. Orkin studies opioid overdose and the distribution of naloxone, a medication that can block the effects of opioids and revive those who have overdosed. “People who are dying from opioid overdoses are not dying alone. They die in the company of friends and family members, people who care about them,” he told the conference. “This is where the idea for naloxone distribution programs came from.”
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology has called for a 33% increase in the number of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) bachelor’s degrees completed per year and recommended adoption of empirically validated teaching practices as critical to achieving that goal. The studies analyzed here document that active learning leads to increases in examination performance that would raise average grades by a half a letter, and that failure rates under traditional lecturing increase by 55% over the rates observed under active learning. The analysis supports theory claiming that calls to increase the number of students receiving STEM degrees could be answered, at least in part, by abandoning traditional lecturing in favor of active learning.
Watching the crackdown on protestors in Turkey four years ago, Ayca Koseoglu, then a recent MA graduate from a university in Ankara, had two thoughts.
“I thought there was no life in Turkey for people like me any more, for academics,” said Ms. Koseoglu, who decided she had to go abroad to continue her education.
Her second thought was that she wanted to research how political movements used public space to stand up to repressive regimes, whether in Turkey, the Middle East or the United States.
Background: Much research has sought to investigate emotions and forms of emotion management among teachers worldwide, including the connection between educational change and teacher emotion; the association between the culture of teaching and teachers’ emotional experience within parentteacher interactions; the link between teacher emotion and teacher beliefs; and the
expressions and sources of a wide variety of emotions in teaching.
I have the mixed fortune of living in a city that, as of this writing, had the highest total snowfall in the United States this year (woohoo Worcester, Massachusetts!). As a skier, I welcome snow; as a homeowner, I have been both lamenting the massive drifts blocking the streets and driveways of our city and cringing at the thought of the water that will inundate our basements in the coming thaw.
Background/Context: In many countries, there are multiple studies intended to improve initial
teacher education. These have generally focused on pieces of teacher education rather than wholes,
and have used an underlying linear logic. It may be, however, that what is needed are new research
questions and theoretical frameworks that account for wholes, not just parts, and take complex,
rather than reductionist perspectives.
Purpose: This article examines the challenges and the promises of complexity theory as a framework for teacher education research. One purpose is to elaborate the basic es. A second purpose is to propose a new research platform that combines complexity alism (CT-CR) and prompts a new set of empirical questions and research methods. es. A second purpose i alism (CT-CR) and prompts a new set of empirical questions and research methods.
Teacher evaluation is a major policy initiative intended to improve the quality of classroom instruction. This study documents a fundamental challenge to using teacher evaluation to improve teaching and learning.
Canada’s universities are critical to Canada’s
international assistance and to mobilizing people and ideas for an innovative, inclusive and
prosperous world. Through leveraging research expertise and networks, engaging researchers and
students, working with communities,
and supporting the provision of quality higher education in partner countries, universities play an
active role in reducing poverty, creating
new opportunities for the world’s poorest and most marginalized, and building more inclusive societies. Canada’s universities are a key, and often underleveraged, asset in shaping an effective and innovative approach for the delivery of Canadian development assistance for the benefit of all citizens in partner countries.
As the voice of Canada’s universities at home and abroad, representing the interests of 97 Canadian public and private not-for-profit universities, Universities Canada is grateful for the opportunity to provide input into this important process of re-examining and re-think-ing Canada’s international assistance policy.
At nearly all colleges and universities, online education is almost never mentioned in academic rules that judge faculty members and determine if they advance. If you teach online, you may do it for extra compensation -- called “overload,” pay above your basic salary -- or for the personal satisfaction of participating in what some believe is the next stage in the evolution of higher education. But teaching online may not be a wise move to further your academic career.
Teaching online can even be a dangerous career move, departing from the comfortable respectability of conventional classrooms for the exotic, suspicious digital world. In the hierarchy of status, if you teach online, do you compromise your position? Will your commitment to scholarship be questioned? Why would you go online when your future depends on publishing results of your research, not engaging in virtual instruction?
Graduate students need to seek out opportunities for collaboration at every stage of their graduate career. Experience working as part of a team is valuable for Ph.D. students preparing for a rapidly evolving academic job market, and it is indispensable for those pursuing careers beyond academe.